Dick Cavett’s Worst Show

Nearly seventeen minutes into an episode of “The Dick Cavett Show,” the host, who had walked off and then returned to the set, asked his guests—John Cassavetes, Peter Falk, and Ben Gazzara—“Are you guys all smashed?”

The September 18, 1970, appearance by the “Husbands” director and his two actors—who had, in fact, been drinking—was excruciating. They were on hand to promote their new movie, but for thirty-five minutes they smoked, flopped around on the floor, and generally tormented Cavett, whose questions they’d planned to ignore. Just before the segment ended, Cavett pronounced it “one of the most interesting evenings of my life.”

Here is Cavett’s memory of that show:

I was completely blindsided by it. Or do we say gobsmacked? That’s purely British. It was out of the blue. It was astonishing. I could not believe it, while it was happening. I think I watched it a year or so ago, and it seemed even worse than I remembered it.

When the circus was going on, with shoes coming off and smelling each other’s feet—which may be an image I have conjured, but something very close to it—and falling down, as if that were funny, just a bunch of louts out encouraging each other in their stupidity, it was … I had a mixed feeling as it was happening. I knew it would be entertaining in a certain way involving the word “horror.” And that it would be talked about. And that it might be fun. But it’s hard to deal with three people. When one person is being an ass, you can pretty much deal with him, or I can—and people who do what I do better be able to—but with three the focus was so diffuse.

I had no idea how long it was gonna go on, whether it was ever gonna stop. If they were ever gonna snap out of it. Most people felt sorry for me, which kind of embarrasses me, because I remember sitting there thinking, I don’t want to come off as the victim of this. The sad thing, Elon, is I could see the faces in the audience. And they were delighted, at first, and then the smiles disappeared. And then they looked just sort of grim and horrified and disapproving. And I had one redeeming, refreshing thought at that moment, which was, Ha, ha. These louts are gonna have to watch this sometime.

In the wings, afterwards, their producer grabbed the three of them, like three kids who are acting up. He got them in a group and said, “I really have to congratulate you. You probably unsold more tickets to this movie than most movies get.” It was a wonderful line. They stood there looking at him, and they started to get shorter. They bowed down. Like kids with their dad berating them. They looked awful. And he really laid into them. It was a sad little scene.

Honest to God, they never quite got over it, every time I ran into them. I felt embarrassed, but I was never embarrassed for myself, for God’s sake, but for them. It would have been an interesting experiment to see them try it with four different hosts, to see how each handled it. Joan Rivers would’ve killed them. There was a kind of a sad aspect to it, really. I like all those guys. I knew them, each and all, individually. Not that we hung out a lot. But I was very fond of John, I knew him, and Ben I got to know more later. But anytime any of them saw me, they were cowed and sheepish afterwards for years.